Fireplace Sentiment
by P0l4r01d
Summary: "Oh my love, please comfort me through your dreams because the fire is warm, but brings bad memories." - Tsuna sits by the fireplace, cradled in Reborn's loving arms as he sorts through a nightmare and seeks comfort from his beloved (Implied R27, crossposted)


**Summary: "Oh my love, please comfort me through your dreams because the fire is warm, but brings bad memories."**

 **Genre: Romance/Angst/Comfort**

 **Status: Complete.**

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 **Disclaimer: I do not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn.**

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In the warmth of swaying flames, Tsuna leans back against a Hitman's strong chest to avoid the embers' flickering reach. The Hitman. The murderer. The mass killer. His beloved husband. They're positioned in front of a brick fireplace fenced off via the black bars patterned with gray smudges, experience tells him that the fire does like to lick at anything that is willing to stand near it. Desperate orange and red forming hands to burn at the innocent pillars forcing them back. For a moment, he thinks of his young and unwilling self, the one that wanted nothing but also to be everything to everyone. Tsuna sighs contently, allowing his weight to sink deeper into the black beanbag his husband is sleeping on, and the same one that he's been using as a chair since their return.

The other still towers over him, head nestled comfortably in his unruly hair with arms encasing his body. Tsuna scrunches his nose in annoyance, Reborn was tall - _really_ tall compared to him.

But other than their differences, they both smell of sweat, blood, and cologne. A... 'Unique' combination to anyone else, but a regular one for people like them. They worked their part and the scent was just a lingering reward; sure, it wasn't a daily thing but the moment they step out of the house in a suit, then it's an established conversation of where each other are going - they're going to work. They're going somewhere to place a cold bullet into someone's thought-filled head, and clear out the rest of the area by any means necessary. Of course that'd hand them the metallic smell hovering above expensive cologne, although it wasn't anything water couldn't drive away.

Tsuna would know, he was the one out of two to figure out how easy it was to wash the sins from his skin. To take hot water and burn the hanging eyes from his body. After that short and simple procedure, it was a matter of simply not thinking about it.

Reborn was a little different. The world's greatest Hitman thought about it whether he wanted to or not - and maybe it was because of how human he was during those early years that he regrets, and how human Tsuna made him feel all over again now that he _still_ regrets, but it didn't suppress any nightmares that often ran amok within his mind. Nobody knew of them. Nobody except Tsuna, but they were ' _soulmates_ ' so what didn't the brunet know?

 _'Soulmates?'_ Tsuna ponders, the branch of thoughts growing from that single word, but growing short before it hits a dead end. Love was -

To Tsuna, love was -

 _'Stop,'_ He inwardly hisses at himself, the topic of romance gave him a headache; so complicated it was.

A puff of white smoke brushes against his attentive expression, and he falls into wariness, fingers tangled affectionately with Reborn's. A pair of warm hands on his lap keeps him reassured, it keeps him feeling coated with wistful memories full of blood pumping love as Tsuna stares off into the mirage of temporary colors, the ones that dance chaotically before him. He breathes in the residue of burning tree logs, exhaling only the warmth within his core.

He feels empty, blank, as if he embodied a piece of paper ready to be written on - to be given a _purpose_. A new one, at least.

Unconsciously, a tiny smile pulls the corners of his lips up, eyes closed like a castle door to seal off the treasure within. The flames cackle in synced amusement, roaring with nostalgic gossip that makes Tsuna's smile evolve into a full out grin towards the memories coming back to him. They swarm his mind like wasps, buzzing like static in an attempt to drive every other thought into still silence. He doesn't make a sound, doesn't move a muscle, he's already perfect where he is so that perfection leads his eyes to the jewelry on his finger. A contempt gaze Tsuna bears as any other interests seeps through his being, the main focus turning to the glinting ring.

The ring his dead mother used to wear when she was alive. Dead because of a dropped match; one unexpected on both sides between his mother, and the murderer commissioned to do so in the first place.

The whispering ashes still lit with scalding heat, ran its silky hands through Tsuna's brain, and for a short moment he sees the brief images that is shoved together to form the whole picture. His mind trembles like an earthquake because he wants to know what he should let go, to reminisce in every drop of despair that ran cold through his veins like an angry stream with limited water, to relive that horrible moment so these comforting emotions fluttering in his stomach may be stomped down.

Obviously, it was a dark desire to risk, one equally as dangerous as an accepted glass of wine served by an unknown person's hand.

It caused the butterflies glinting gracefully with colors like tinted glass, to die; to flap their wings innocently within his lungs without a care one moment, but the next be filled with desolation. So so much desolation, via them having their wings be pierced by toxic vines that then start ripping their fragile bodies apart, they fall into the burning acid that slowly stirs a storm in his stomach. Tsuna waves off the lost sentiment that makes the atmosphere warm - instead he welcomes the feeling of utter disgust that blooms orange lilies inside his confined chest.

And he starts to remember; it begins with him seeing it, then hearing it, and then _feeling_ it. God, does he hate dwelling in the misery of the past, but what else will he do in the silence that keeps him waiting?

But what _is_ he waiting for? He doesn't know. He does know. He doesn't care.

Ah, the show is starting.

Fire. Smoke. Screaming. Repeat, replay, retry? No no, there's no retry button to something as vivid and important as this. This is the highlight of his life! This is necessary! Or at least that's what he tells himself.

There was screaming, a lot of it. The source being poor Tsuna who had waterfalls dragging his sight away, fingernails digging desperately into the skin of his mother who always fell limp into death, over _and over and over again_. He looks away to the smoke, noting that it was black, thick and heavy like a sea monster from the deepest parts of the ocean. Like a fire that wasn't supposed to be set alight, but was and now the flames are crawling up the walls around him with intent to pounce.

Tsuna wanted to leave, he wanted to run, except he couldn't because his mother had black petals from grotesque flowers spreading seeds inside of her lungs. He's evading the point too, thinking that her eyes had been closed to sleep, but they had been for so long that he's grateful because his feels like they're burning. Tsuna hopes that his mother's sleeping peacefully through the attempts to drag her outside, outside where the sky is navy blue and they can see; if he even has the capability to see at all now, that is.

Are his eyeballs melting? It feels like it to him. What if the tears streaking down his face aren't tears, but instead were his melted sight trying to escape the scenery of vicious flowers, red, orange, yellow ready to drink up stolen air. He doesn't blame them for wanting to escape. He doesn't blame his mother for suddenly passing out into eternal sleep, the flames that had eaten away at her legs were probably too painful to stay alive for.

Tsuna wonders if he's next. He always liked warm hugs.

But contradicting that thought, he's still yelling with a hoarse voice for help to get out of the house. No one responds of course, nobody is going to think that, 'whining, stupid, bratty Tsuna' crying out for help is any different from the other days.

This was supposed to be another day, a normal day _damn it_.

But Tsuna tries to see through the smoke looming over him, and he walks outside while pulling his mother's corpse with him to the porch through a cracked window. He wonders why that window is cracked, then stops since the rock that almost catches his feet explains enough. Tsuna turns around to the sky, eyes pulsing with heat, and skin feeling as though they're ready to turn to ash, he sees someone staring at him with an expression too twisted to forget. There was ignorance there, but no signs of remorse or intent to remember this event happening because there was that... Splash of color he knows of.

Like the times where he explored a concept so _new and wonderful to him_ , and it ended up being 'okay.' Like the time where he and his mother went to a park to feed birds, and the birds felt settled enough to perch themselves around Tsuna's anxious presence. Those bright beautiful colors of accomplishment, filling up his sight are ones he doesn't forget. And he's able to recognize them too.

Tsuna can easily recognize the feeling of pride, except the colors were too bright that they casted shadows too dense. This person's eyes contained the stars exploding with colors, exploding as though the crime scene of his house burning down and the horror on his face as he holds his dead mother's hand, was worth the tears Tsuna spilled. _Pure joy_ radiated from those irises he stared into, as if this person was willing to do it all over again and have this moment be what drives him forward for the next time.

Tsuna couldn't let there be a next time, so he -

 _'Cut'_ Tsuna thinks

The memories fall short of a cliff.

Then he breathes calmly, fingers still warm as they hold another hand losing warmth quickly, drastically, _entertainingly_ \- cold sweat falls onto Tsuna's cheeks, tracing faded tear marks down to his jaw, but it wasn't his sweat to begin with; how could he even have _cold_ sweat when he's facing the fire? Inhaling the wisps of white smoke leaking from the fire place, Tsuna creates a happy tune in the form of humming, one pleasant and loud enough to overlap the noises ruining the serene peace in the background.

To Tsuna, love was important, but he couldn't find himself to be anyone's 'soulmate' - why? Because Tsuna was a tiny glass bottle, festering with emotions cracking the dense glass while sparking up embers that were too dim to be recognized as light. However, they were also too dark to be seen as the joyous shadows hanging underneath people's feet. But he'll admit it, he's too tired to form bonds, to build trusts on the foundation of words, to make attempts to actually _mean_ the whispers of 'I love you' at night more than platonically. Too tired. Too cracked. Too _dark_ for something as endeared as that.

So instead of loving, Tsuna enjoys the moment when his _beloved_ husband stops struggling to hang onto his life underneath the icy wrath of death's poisonous kiss.

And he's okay with no longer having a husband, because whenever Reborn comes through that tall, dark door that seems to cast a lighter shadow than Reborn himself, Tsuna sees him bearing an expression of smug pride over the fact that the job he was assigned was successful. That was a problem, because Tsuna could _always_ \- with little effort - match up those equally bright colors spreading across worn out eyes, with the ones he saw all those nights ago. He doesn't forget, that's for sure.

The love fades away from the fragile vessel that is his body, but only when he makes the comparison. If Tsuna was honest to himself, all he really wanted was the hurt in his chest to be comforted; tonight he got his wish.

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The end.


End file.
